Inspection of liquids in transparent vessels for excessive particle content has long been done manually. Typically, the vial is agitated to place its contents in motion therewithin, placed under a strong light and viewed by a human inspector who then accepts or rejects the vial. This procedure has numerous disadvantages which have long been known. For example, individual inspectors will differ from each other in visual capability and judgment as to what particle pattern or content should cause rejection of a vial. Also, such human sorting is relatively slow, thus requiring a relatively high ratio between number of inspection man hours per quantity of vials inspected. Further, inspector fatigue tends to develop early in an inspection run, increasing the number of errors in acceptance and rejection of vials.
In view of these and other disadvantages of direct human inspection, attempts have been made over the years to provide automatic apparatus for carrying out the inspection of vials without need for human handling or viewing of the vials. However, insofar as we are aware, none of these prior machines has been entirely acceptable or satisfactory, especially for rapid yet highly reliable inspection for particle content, particularly where the threshold for acceptable particle content is very low in terms of number and small size, for example in inspection of pharmaceutical liquids containing vials. Indeed, in many instances in the pharmaceutical industry, human inspectors, despite disadvantages thereof, are still used as the vial content inspection device, and in preference to available to automatic inspection machines.
Accordingly, the objects of this invention include providing:
An inspection system for detecting excessive particulate matter in serially presented liquid filled vials or the like.
An inspection system as aforesaid capable of moving vials in series reliably and with minimum shck past serially arranged stations for spinning, inspecting and if necessary rejecting such vials, wherein a relatively compact machine is maintained despite movement of television cameras and light sources along with corresponding vials over such spin and inspection segments of vial travel.
A system as aforesaid in which inspection of each vial is carried out by a low persistance black and white closed circuit television camera, in which significant particles in the swirling vial liquid are detected by circuitry which assesses the width, height and duration of video disturbances resulting from such a particle, and wherein a closed circuit color television monitor is connected to display different system operating parameters in different colors for both set up and operation of the system.
A system as aforesaid which is operable with one or plural camera incorporating inspection units, wherein up to a first plurality of cameras may time share a single processor circuitry unit and monitor, and wherein up to a second and larger plurality of cameras may time share two processing circuitry units and a single monitor.
A system as aforesaid capable of detecting even very small particles in liquid filled vials and doing so in a reliable manner.
Other objects and purposes of this invention will be apparent to persons acquanited with apparatus of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.